This is way past cool fantastic! It takes me forever to make a decent map, and you're crafting them at factory speeds. An Earthbound inspired Sonic game has surprising potential, and I hope you have great success with this project.

If you are interested, Ranger, I might be some help in battle game design and writing. RPG combat is something I spend a lot of time thinking and writing calculations for, and writing is my main practice.

With how to make the combat feel like Sonic... hmm... You could potentially mix evasive moves with attack moves. Say, if you Jump at an enemy, that can double as an attack and boosting your evasion. Enemies could have patterns that make it vital to use evasive moves at the correct time. You could, potentially, even mix in the rings health system, where the turn after you get hit you have the option to try and regain the lost rings. But that might be tricky to code into RPG Maker.

If the idea interests you, I could work out a design document analyzing how it might be implemented with minimum strain. As for writing, I'm not sure what I can say on that without knowing more about your story goals or premise.